John Augustus Stone: The Man Who Gave Us Metamora

The date December 15 has a dual significance; it was the birthday of actor and playwright John Augustus Stone (1801-34) and it was also the date of the premiere of his best known play by far, Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags (1829).

Stone was a native of Concord, Massachusetts who went on the New York stage circa 1822, usually playing comic parts. His career as a produced playwright began around the same time. In 1828 actor Edwin Forrest announced that he was seeking a tragedy with an “aboriginal” (Native American) hero. A selection committee, headed by William Cullen Bryant, chose Stone’s as the best, awarding him the prize of $500 plus half the proceeds of the third performance (this would total in the tens of thousands in today’s money.)

The character of Metamora is based on Metacom, better known to posterity as King Philip. Forrest scored a hit in the play, starring in revivals many times throughout the ensuing decades. He was to use this competitive method of play selection for the next several years. He and Stone were to become friends, and Forrest would star in some of Stone’s subsequent plays, although none matched the success of Metamora, which was popular on American stages until around 1890. It was the most popular and enduring of the so-called “Indian” plays, a dramatic subgenre of the 19th century that saw the creation of around 75 similar works.

There is no shortage of people of both the left and right who resist the word “problematic” for describing racial depictions in such works from the 19th and 20th centuries, but there’s no other way to describe it. Forrest’s motives in seeking such a role were likely mixed. One can seek to play a Native American hero for positive reasons, or at least understandable ones, such as inclusion, education, and novelty, while nevertheless depicting the character negatively (violent, primitive). You may call such a character “noble” and “valiant” while at the same time patronizing him. Also, there’s the question of a white actor playing a person of color, still a topic of debate to this day.

For more perspective, Forrest was allied with the Democrats of Tammany Hall who strove to get Andrew Jackson elected President, leading directly to the Trail of Tears. 20 years later, a mob of Forrest supporters rioted in the streets of New York in protest of a performance by the “foreigner” William Macready. Consider the temerity of calling any other group of people “savage” when you behave like that.

Stone was not billed in the advertising materials for Metamora, which consequently did little for his fame. Money woes and mental illness drove him to commit suicide by jumping into the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia in 1834, less than five years after the success of Metamora. He was only 33.

20 years ago, the Metropolitan Playhouse revived the play, directed by Alex Roe, and starring my friend Matthew Trumbull (a relation, it so happens, of the great painter and Revolutionary War officer, aid to Generals Washington and Gates). I wish I’d seen it! This company was very good at fostering the conversations sparked by bygone works like this. Conversation! It beats riots in the streets every time.